In our next episode, we’ll continue along the Frankincense Trail and get to the Land Bountiful. George Potter has some interesting insights into why Laman and Lemuel might have rebelled, and we will discuss Nephi’s broken bow. George has some interesting insights.

George: There is a guy named Nigel Groom who is the expert on the Frankincense Trail. He is a British scholar. He has written two books on the Frankincense Trail.[1] He has also written a book called A Dictionary of Arabic Topography and Place Names.[2] This is the only dictionary that exists like this. You can go right there to mujahareen and see it translates to the “most fertile pieces.” It’s his own writing: “most fertile parts.” Pieces and parts are synonyms. Again, a Book of Mormon place name, right along the Frankincense Trail. There are villages that were through the most fertile part of the trail. So Nephi describes they went through the most fertile parts, then they went through the more fertile parts. Finally they travelled, he said for a space of many days, and then they had to stop and look for food. In other words, it ain’t fertile at all. They had to go hunting in the mountains.

GT: This is where Nephi broke his bow, right?

George: It’s where Nephi broke his bow. It just so happens that the area there where bow-wood grows in Arabia is a very small area, about 150 miles long. Atum is the name of the wood, and again it would have been right along the trail where Nephi would have been. So, we document all of this in our films and our books.[3] This is amazing, and it’s up in the mountains. Up in the mountains is where all of the game is. They are not down in the desert, they are up in the mountains. So Nephi would have made his bow out of atum would, which is a type of olive. He would have then gone up to the mountains to get his game. So, it is all in context.

From there they travel and they get to a very desperate part of the trail. This is where there is open rebellion. Laman and Lemuel are contemplating killing Nephi and Lehi. They want to go back. Ishmael dies. They call the place Nahom.

[2] The entire name is A Dictionary of Arabic Topography and Place Names: A Transliterated Arabic-English Dictionary With an Arabic Glossary of Topographical Words and Place Names. See https://amzn.to/2HMw6us